Originally posted at Reckonin.com My last post (Hitler’s New Fans) has received a fair amount of comment, mostly negative. Some have questioned why I addressed the subject? Because I thought someone needed to take notice of an unfortunate trend. I have no quarrel with the Alternative Right as long as it is attacking the evil Yankee Empire. But to bring...| Abbeville Institute
At a recent Abbeville Conference, I tackled a subject that’s been hiding in plain sight all along – the Southern accent. I’ve lived in Alabama almost my whole life, so I’m definitely familiar with the Southern accent. Now it’s true that my wife and I lived in Iowa for three years, but we actually kind of liked it up there....| Abbeville Institute
For the past week, Dinesh D’Souza has engaged in an ongoing debate on social media concerning the meaning of American conservatism and the influence of the South in American history. D’Souza—like Victor Davis Hanson, Harry Jaffa, Larry Arnn, Allen Guelzo, and a host of other mainstream conservatives—argue that while Robert E. Lee has admirable traits, the South cannot be integrated...| Abbeville Institute
This piece was originally published in 1931 in the Montgomery Advertiser. God willed that even trees should have an individuality. In the world’s history, there is the “Charter Oak” and there was the “Washington Elm,” and in Athens, Ga., a tree has a deed to its own plot of ground. Most of us have heard of the “Cedars of Lebanon,”...| Abbeville Institute
I have been a big advocate for decentralized power, which in our American context has been connected to “states’ rights;” the most prominent period and example being the American Civil War, where the Southern states resisted centralized federal control and both fought for and applied to their Constitution a strong decentralized states’ rights policy.| Abbeville Institute
On a recent episode of The War Room (here) with Stephen K. Bannon the following exchange between Bannon and Mike Davis of the Article III Project took place. Davis is a constitutional lawyer and a very active and successful supporter of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, as is Bannon. The segment reference runs from 16:25 to 17:50 (transcript taken from closed captions).| Abbeville Institute
In the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” When that consent is withdrawn—when the government becomes the destroyer, rather than the protector, of life, liberty, and property—then the people retain the right, indeed the duty, to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to the abusers.| Abbeville Institute
Today is John C. Calhoun’s 243 birthday. Several years ago, I took some time to visit John C. Calhoun’s grave in Charleston, SC., a massive stone monument at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church erected in the 1880s to honor the State’s greatest son. Calhoun’s body had been exhumed three times, once from Washington D.C. after he died in 1850 so it could be moved back to South Carolina, once to protect it from marauding Union soldiers during the War (he was placed in an unmarked grave), and...| Abbeville Institute
A review of Southern Story and Song: Country Music in the 20th Century (Shotwell, 2024) by Joseph R. Stromberg| Abbeville Institute
When most Americans think of the “First Thanksgiving,” they think of the Pilgrims in Plymouth who sat down for a Harvest Festival meal with the Wampanoag Indians in 1621. The Pilgrims had arrived on the Mayflower in November of 1620 and nearly a year later celebrated the abundance of provisions that God had provided. The Thanksgiving tradition recalls to memory Indians like Squanto (1580–1622) and Englishmen like William Bradford (1590–1657), who was elected governor in early 1621. Ma...| Abbeville Institute
The central issue of the 2024 election was the question, what is democracy? The Democrats in particular claimed that they were the defenders of “democracy.” They were sincere, although to their opponents this claim seemed the epitome of gaslighting. Their view is that democracy is top-down, whereby elite institutions (e.g., universities, foundations, the science establishment, big business, the media, government itself) use government power to formulate and impose the will of those ...| Abbeville Institute
Originally published at Truthscript.com| Abbeville Institute
Cities hustle and bustle, small towns hum. Six days out of seven in the little town where I live, you can hear the low rattle of log trucks playing hopscotch over potholes in county roads that haven’t been solid since Clinton was governor. The chug-a-chug of the Georgia Pacific train marks six o’clock on both ends of the day. And the sawmill whistles at us morning and noon like a camp cook calling folks to breakfast and lunch. But on Sundays the hum becomes hymns, and the only noise you h...| Abbeville Institute
Government, Thomas Jefferson all too frequently notes, is for the sake of the wellbeing of all citizens, each considered the political equal of all others and, in consequence, deserving of the same rights. Government, thus, exists for the sake of the wellbeing of all citizens, considered as individuals. Government, he often says, is of and for the people.| Abbeville Institute
It is common in Civil War circles to hear about the so-called “Lost Cause”, variously termed a myth or a narrative. Are those two terms synonymous? Let’s look. Dictionary.com defines myth as: “a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.”| Abbeville Institute
When speaking at Abbeville’s “The 1607 Project,” someone from the audience came to me, after my talk—and the Abbeville audience was electric!—and said, “You really mean what you say.” It was a curious sentiment, for by implication, I could conclude that many speakers at that or other conferences merely go about the business of public speaking without investing personally in their words—that is, without regard for authenticity.| Abbeville Institute
There is an old saying that rejects not only the concept of the “randomness” of history but of mankind’s involvement in that history. It identifies situations addressing external forces acting on human beings and in so doing influencing history itself. This maxim states that, “Man proposes but God disposes.” For there is overwhelming evidence of the existence of something other than the activities of men or the workings of random happenstance that validate this belief even by those ...| Abbeville Institute
Julia Winston Ivey, on September 15, 2020, quietly passed away at her house on Parkland Drive in Lynchburg, Virginia. She was a remarkable musical talent, an internationally lauded pianist in her prime years, yet her death created only a small stir in Hill City and her funeral, at her gravesite, was sparsely attended. The irony of her hushed passing is that she was very likely the largest musical talent that Lynchburg has ever seen.| Abbeville Institute
Dickey Betts died. If you need to read a biographical tribute, turn elsewhere. While there are plenty of cookie-cutter articles about Dickey Betts all over the place, the perspective found here is from a fellow musician, a fellow guitarist, and a fellow Southerner who never met Dickey Betts or ever even saw him perform. But, oh, what an influence he had on me!| Abbeville Institute
If you’re in need of a last-minute Christmas gift for that Dixian or Copperhead on your nice list, or even for (or more especially for) that Yankee on your naughty list, look no further. R…| Dissident Mama
